by Ryan Michele
And then he had it.
Because a woman followed Jake into the shop. A beautiful woman with nearly waist-long black curls. A woman with a guitar case strapped to her back and…was that a puppy tucked in her arm?
She looked up, her gaze going from Jake to her car to Slider before passing over Jagger. She did a double take. And so did he.
A familiarity he couldn’t place. But he knew he’d seen those nearly teal-blue eyes before. And then he clocked where he knew her from. It was the hair that’d thrown him off. He’d never realized how long it was because she’d always worn it up in these soft, intricate hairdos that’d made him think of the flamenco chord progressions of the Spanish guitar. “Hey, Teach,” he said.
Her expression went from puzzlement to realization. “Jackson?” She used his given name rather than his nickname, because that was how she’d known him. In prison. When he’d taken her literature class—one he hadn’t yet finished when he’d been released. “What are you doing here?”
Andi Everly hadn’t thought her day could get any worse—and then she’d run off the road and into a ditch. Now, here she stood, wet, bedraggled, and with dirty paw prints covering her damp white T-shirt as she ran into a man she hadn’t seen in seven months.
Jackson quirked a grin as he shrugged one big shoulder—a shoulder covered in a denim and leather cut-off jacket with a name patch that read Jagger. The man was as tall and broad-shouldered as she’d remembered. His brown hair was longer than it’d been before, and he had a bit of a five o’clock shadow along his jaw despite the fact that it was only eleven in the morning. In a pair of worn jeans, a black T-shirt, and that motorcycle-club vest—a vest that a blond-haired man leaning against a counter was also wearing, Jackson was ruggedly handsome—a thought that caught her off guard.
“One of my best friends own the place,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
To distract herself from ogling her one-time student, she glanced over at the mangled frame of the car. “Oh, uh, rain plus puppy unexpectedly in the road equaled my car in a ditch. Apparently…”
As if he knew she’d been talking about him, the puppy squirmed in her arms, and she peered down at the little ball of gray and white fur that looked too thin and dirty to have an owner. Most likely he’d been dumped. He’d trundled out onto the road when she’d been so close that she couldn’t stop in time. It was like her tires had started to hydroplane, and then she’d had no other way to avoid hitting him than to veer off the road. Except there wasn’t much to the side of that particular road save for a thin strip of gravel bordering a ditch. The car had slid into it and slammed to a halt. Her chest still hurt from the quick restraint of the seat belt.
Still, she supposed it all could’ve been worse.
Jackson stepped closer, a smile on his face as he looked at the puppy. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full there.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him…”
“My fiancée might be able to help.” A man with dark hair and a close-cropped beard joined them. He wore a shirt with the shop’s name and a tag that read, Sam. “She works at the animal shelter. I’m Sam Evans, the owner. Would you come out to the reception area with me so I can get some information?”
Andi gave Jackson a little smile as she stepped away. Just as she passed through the doorway, she heard the blond man asked, “You two know each other?” She was curious to hear how Jackson would answer, but Sam distracted her with forms and signatures and the realization that she was going to be without a vehicle for a few days. That it was Friday was her only saving grace—she didn’t have to be to work until Monday morning.
When he finished checking her in, Sam asked, “You need a ride somewhere?”
She stroked her hand over the silky hair of the puppy’s head. “I can probably call an Uber or something.”
“Suit yourself,” Sam said. “We can help if you change your mind.”
She nodded, and the man left her alone in the waiting room. “I’m gonna put you down for a second. Okay, buddy?” Crouching, she put the pit bull—if she had to guess at the breed—down beside her and fished her cell phone from her purse. She hit the home button. Then again. The screen remained dark. “Just perfect.” Her battery had been draining quicker and quicker lately, but she’d been putting off the expense of replacing it. And now the car…
On a sigh, Andi eyed the phone behind the counter.
Not sure what else to do, she went back into the shop, the puppy following behind. “I’m sorry, can I use your phone? Mine’s out of battery.”
Sam, Jackson, and the other man looked up from some paperwork spread out on a counter. “No problem,” Sam said, coming back into the office. He grabbed the phone and hauled it onto the customer service counter so she could reach it.
Except then she realized she wasn’t sure who she could call. Asking for a ride from her parents or brother wouldn’t come without a heavy dose of judgment, and she wasn’t really in the mood. But without her cell, she couldn’t call an Uber. A taxi, maybe?
“You want some help, Teach? Slider’s gonna reschedule our meeting so he can focus on your car, so I’m free to play taxi driver.”
Andi turned to find Jackson leaning against the door jamb, the puppy in his big hands, holding him so that he and the puppy were looking at each other. The dog pawed Jackson’s nose and the man laughed.
Her brain shorted out for a minute—because she was having a whole day just then, because Jackson looked equal parts cute and hot holding that puppy up to his face and talking to it, because of his offer to help. All of which was maybe why her only reply was, “Slider?”
Jackson chuckled. “Oh, I mean Sam. Sorry, using club names is a force of habit.”
Her gaze ran over his vest again. She’d heard of the Raven Riders—their races at the Green Valley Speedway; their brushes with the law; and, interestingly, the fact that they provided protective and even relocation assistance to vulnerable women and children. You couldn’t live in the area and not have seen or heard about them.
“This guy is cute. His lip curl makes it look like he’s doing an Elvis impersonation.”
Hugging herself, she moved closer. “I think he has a little cleft lip. Someone must’ve dumped him, though I don’t know how anyone could do that to an animal.”
Something dark flashed across Jackson’s expression for just a moment. “Nothing surprises me these days.” He glanced up at her. His brown-eyed gaze ran over her face much more directly than he’d ever dared when he was in her class. Then again, that was a whole different environment. Now, he was free. And she was on his turf. “Can I run you somewhere?”
“I don’t want to put you out.”
“I’m offering, so you won’t. But I’ll understand if being alone with me makes you comfortable.”
Andi blinked, an awkward guilt settling into her stomach. He’d been in prison, yes. But she also knew that he’d been exonerated. A lot of prisoners professed their innocence; Jackson Locke actually had been.
Teaching college courses via the correctional education program, she saw the men she taught as students, not inmates. And she cared about them the same way she’d cared about all the other college students she’d worked with. Jackson had been one of the students who’d most made her wonder about him and what his life had been before prison. In class, his comments had been thoughtful, and his analysis of the readings always seemed to go a level deeper than anyone else. On his papers, his writing was well organized and effective, and his prose sometimes bordered on the lyrical. It wasn’t unusual for her students to impress her, and Jackson was one who definitely had.
And then he’d been released. Exonerated. And it’d made her wonder about him even more.
Now, here he was, offering to help her.
“Oh, no, it’s not that. I…” She shrugged, which reminded her that she still bore her guitar on her back. She slid it off and rested it against the wall. “I’ve just had such a bad day tha
t I’m a little at a loss.”
“Then let me help make it better.”
2
Jagger wasn’t sure why he was pushing, but it was the right thing to do and Professor Everly clearly needed help. Professor Everly. None of them had called her that. They’d all called her “Teach” because that’s what she’d done for them. She was one of the best in the whole correctional education program. Everyone had said so, which was why Jagger had signed up to take a class from her in the first place. She’d been the kind of teacher who truly cared. Who saw them as students, not criminals. She’d valued their life experiences and encouraged them to come at the books and stories they read through the lens of their own lives.
“Okay, thank you,” she said. “Um, I guess the first thing is maybe taking him to the shelter?”
Jagger looked at the little runt in his hands. Dogs were so damn pure that you couldn’t help but feel a little better after petting one. “Let’s get you some help, Elvis. What do you say?”
“Elvis?”
He grinned at her and shrugged. “Gotta call him something.”
Chuckling, Teach nodded. “Guess so.” She pulled a little band out of her pocket and whipped her hair into a quick, messy bun on top of her head, exposing a distracting sliver of her stomach as her shirt rode up above her jeans. Damn. Jagger swallowed hard and reached for her guitar—at the same time she did.
He got to the strap first. “I got it.”
Their faces close from how they’d both leaned down, something sparked in her blue eyes. Surprise? Challenge? Interest? He couldn’t say. And probably shouldn’t even wonder about it, given who she was and who he’d recently been. “Okay,” she said.
Outside, the rain was coming down steadily, so he opened the door for her and slid her guitar to lean against the middle of the big bench seat. When she was in, he ran around to the driver’s side until they were shut up in the truck’s cab together. Rain drummed against the roof as Jagger pulled out his phone. “Cora—that’s Slider’s fiancée—is at the shelter today. I’ll let her know we’re coming in.” When he was done, he put the truck in reverse.
“It’s nice to know there’s someone there I can trust to take care of Elvis.” She petted him where he lay almost asleep on her lap.
Jagger grinned at her use of the name, and then pulled out onto the road. A few minutes passed in relative quiet, and he was trying to think of something to say—or whether to say anything at all. It wasn’t like she was here for a social call. And he still wasn’t convinced that she didn’t feel uncomfortable being alone with him.
“A little light reading?” she said, peering down at the beat-up backpack on the floor which the guitar case had tilted toward her.
He followed her gaze to the backpack. “Something like that.”
She reached for the top book, but then froze and peered over at him. “May I?”
He shrugged as he came to a stop at a traffic light. “Help yourself.” For a long moment, the rhythmic beat of the windshield wipers filled the car.
One by one, she pulled books out and made a little stack by her leg. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Huxley’s Brave New World, Ginsberg’s Howl, Morrison’s Beloved, and Nabokov’s Lolita sat in a pile together. She held To Kill a Mockingbird and The Autobiography of Malcolm X in her hands. “You have some great books here.”
Jagger cleared his throat. “You inspired everything in that bag.”
Her gaze whipped toward him just as the light turned green. “I didn’t assign all of these.”
No, but it was due to her that he’d sought all these books out. Her course had been based around banned books, and he’d been fascinated by the idea that some words were considered too controversial to read and some ideas were deemed too dangerous to consider. Sorta like some people were considered too non-conforming to be accepted, and that analogy hit him down deep.
But he’d gotten out of prison before the semester had ended. It’d been the only thing he’d missed about that hell hole. And he had missed it. So he’d decided to continue reading on his own, guided by lists of banned books he’d found online. “You inspired them, though. I didn’t have you, but I had everything you’d taught me about how to identify the values put forward and challenged by books that’ve been banned, about what they say about the society that bans them, and about the role of provocative books in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world.”
Teach blinked at him. Then again. And then she shook her head as if confused. “Can I ask why you’ve never gone to college before my class?”
“It wasn’t for lack of wanting, but when your father splits when you’re fifteen and it falls to you to provide for your mom and sister, schooling sorta takes a back seat. I’m lucky I graduated high school. By the time I started working at the speedway and connected up with the Raven Riders, it felt more important to save money to put my sister through school. So that’s what I did. She’s a geologist.”
Thinking of Cassia made him smile, especially because she was doing so good these days. An accident a few years back had nearly brought her whole life crashing down on her—literally, but it seemed like she was getting more and more over what’d happened every time he saw her. He guessed her new boyfriend, Quinton, had something to do with that.
Her expression went soft and appraising as she looked at him. “You’re proud of her.”
Hooking a left onto the animal shelter’s street, Jackson smiled and nodded. “Damn proud.”
Teach pulled out another book. The Catcher in the Rye. “What did you think of this one?”
“Dude would not stop complaining.”
She laughed. “You’re not wrong.”
He eased the truck into the shelter’s lot and took the spot closest to the door. “We’re here, Teach.”
“You can use my name, you know.”
Killing the engine, he looked over at her and tried not to feel sucker punched by how pretty she was. But, damn, she really was. Those soft black waves that’d fallen loose from her updo. The brilliant contrast of her eyes. How freely she smiled. “Professor Everly?”
She smirked. “Miranda. Or even Andi.”
“Miranda.” The name had a soft sweetness to it, whereas the nickname was tougher, no-nonsense, and sexy, as if there were two sides of her. He liked both. “Andi. Okay.”
“Do you prefer Jagger?” she asked.
He tilted his head as he looked at her. She had no reason to care what he preferred one way or the other, which made him respect her even more for the fact that she did. “I’m probably more used to it at this point, but I don’t mind either way.”
“Jagger it is, then.” He liked the way his name sounded when she said it. The puppy whimpered and squirmed in Andi’s lap, drawing their attention to him. “Hey, little man, let’s get you checked out.”
Inside, they found Cora at the reception desk. With shoulder-length wavy blond hair and an out-going personality, she was Slider’s total opposite, but they worked together like they’d been meant to be—something that seemed all the more true when you saw Cora with Slider’s two sons and witnessed how much they adored her, too.
“Should you be on your feet?” Jagger asked by way of a greeting.
“Hi, Jagger. Please don’t tell Slider. Having a belly this big makes it nearly impossible to get on and off the stool. It’s just easier.” Wearing a pale blue dress, she came around the reception desk, one hand on her rounded stomach. “So where did this guy come from?”
Jagger gestured to Andi. “Cora, this is Miranda Everly. Miranda, Cora.” The women shook hands and said hellos.
“He ran out into the road and I nearly hit him earlier today,” Andi said. “I thought he should get checked out. He doesn’t have a collar or anything.”
Cora petted the puppy’s head. From somewhere in the back of the building, a chorus of barking dogs sounded out.
“She’s being modest,” Jagger said, knowing Cora of all people would respect what this woman ha
d done to protect this dog. “She drove off the road to avoid hitting him. She totally saved him.” Andi’s appreciative gaze landed on him and he met it head on. Because he liked her looking at him. And he liked looking in return. Unlike when they’d first met in her classroom, they were both free to look.
“Wow,” Cora said, seemingly unaware of the tension bubbling between them. “I hope you’re okay.”
Andi pressed a hand above her heart. “I drove my car into a ditch, so I don’t know whether my ego or my chest is more bruised.”
Jagger frowned. He hadn’t thought about her being hurt, but of course the seat belt would’ve done a number on her. Hell, the air bag, too. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. It’s not a big deal.” She gave him a small smile, her gaze less direct this time.
“Can you put him on the scale for me so we can get a weight?” Cora pointed to the big silver floor unit against the wall.
Andi plopped him down. “Twelve and a half pounds.”
“He’s just a baby,” Cora said. “Did you give him a name, or do I get the pleasure? We have to call him something.”
Jagger held out a hand and grinned at Andi. “See?”
She laughed, and he loved the sound of it. “Yeah, yeah. Jagger thinks his name should be Elvis.”
Cora beamed as she typed some information into the computer. “Elvis is an amazing name. He’s got the lip curl and everything.” When she was done checking him in and taking down Miranda’s information, she looked up from the computer. “Well, say good-bye to your saviors for now, Elvis. We’ll get him checked out. Are you wanting to adopt him? If not, puppies are always great candidates for our foster program.”
“Oh.” Andi’s expression was wistful as she peered down at the pup. “Can I have some time to think about it? I hadn’t really set out today to adopt a pet, but I’m also a little attached to him.”
“Man, do I understand that,” Cora said, reaching out for Elvis. “Of course. I’ll call you as soon as the doctor has had a chance to evaluate him and we know if he needs anything.” Andi nodded.